The Issue with Swords as a Family Heirloom
by mediaboy
Summary: Lets be honest, the Sword of Gryffindor wasn't just going to lie around in a moldy old hat. There was always going to be someone heroic using the sword somewhere in the world. The only question is: what were they doing when Harry needed it more?


**AN - one shot based on a comment made to a close friend who knows me far too well to attempt to discourage me from making silly fics like this.**

Charles was a long-time hero adventurer. Aside from those pesky storybook heroes, like that Lockhart chap that he had since learnt to recognise after one dark and dangerous night and an attempted obliviate, there were precious few hero adventurers left. And, if Charles was quite honest, he felt that no one should count storybook adventurers. If you have time to write down your adventures then you either weren't spending enough time slaying dragons, trolls and other fell beasts, or you weren't spending enough time enjoying the lush rewards of saving voluptuous women from aforementioned evils. Even in dark magick temples where the high priest prefered his sausage to his meat muffin there were at least treasures to be collected (and counted) by the discerning adventurer.

So far as Charles could understand, storybook heroes had only one goal in mind. Fame. And, to be quite honest, being an adventurer sucked if you were famous. He'd tried out being famous once, back when he was in Africa, and quite soon found that the number of adventures you got decreased rapidly when the local dark lords knew that you were not only entirely capable but also entirely willing to storm into their fortress and steal their harem for yourself. All things considered, Charles considered fame to be a barrier between himself and adventure. Which is why, he noted, instead of relaxing on some cushy couch in the middle of a school office or some other whatsit that whozits did, he was stuck halfway up a beanstalk shouting calming words to a girl that was far too young even for him to consider.

"Don't worry my girl, I'll get you soon."

The giant, stomping down from above, was less than impressed with Charles' somewhat lacklustre attempts to calm to the situation. "FE FI FO FUM, I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISHMAN!"

Charles grimaced. It really wasn't very good of the old fellow to try and impose his will on someone else like this. "I want you to hold on very tight, okay?" Pulling his wand from his pocket, Charles glanced down at the ground. It seemed like quite a way, but what was an adventure if it didn't have at least one breathtakingly intense dive down to the ground involved? "TALLY HO!"

He jumped, grabbing at the young girl's waist, plunging them downwards towards the ground. Her screams filled his ears as his screams filled the air, his whoops of excitement not quite ringing true against her terrified pleadings with a higher power. _This_ was adventure. The wind whistling in his hair, the clouds above, the sun in his face, evil monsters trying to kill him. Charles was, quite honestly, happy. A quick spell and they glided to a halt, settling down on the ground quite calmly, though her fists continued to pound at him ineffectually as he glanced at the beanstalk once more before eyeing the sky. The giant was making a rapid descent down the beanstalk, and really there was only one sensible choice to chop down the plant.

Putting away his wand, lest he be tempted into using a cutting curse or some other nice and easy method of resolving the issue, he held his hand out into thin air and _flexed_ , letting his hand settle around the grip of a suddenly materialising sword, as it responded to his (obvious heroic) need. Perfectly acceptable to use a sword in leiu of a wand. Everyone knew this. Three swift cuts later and he stood by the beanstalk smiling for a photo (for his scrapbook) and looking around for the girl's mother. Forty two, so relatively young, and entirely voluptuous. Charles' eyes lit up. Maybe this entire adventure wouldn't be a _complete_ waste of time…

As the scene cuts away to black, we have a brief interlude in which we can examine the character of Charles more aptly whilst things that don't entirely fit into a child friendly fic happen behind closed curtains with the soft sound of giggles and brushing of clothing.

As you can perhaps tell, Charles was not the most honorable of explorers. If anything, he was entirely dishonorable: by which we mean that Charles was one of the best explorers. This woman, apparently, believed that he'd swam the seven seas, fought a nundu singlehanded, battled a dragon above the forests of Russia, raided the great tombs. It was, of course, entirely true. But, nonetheless, like the perpetually escaping fish, Charles often found that stories seemed to grow when he wasn't really looking at them, or even telling them himself. A horde of nundu, a fierce nesting mother, riches beyond all measure raided from every last adventure. Charles was, quite unashamedly, the kind of ragamuffin that left women pregnant all over Europe.

It was the family curse, of kinds. _May You Live In Interesting Times_. Twenty successive generations of male lineage were required to remove the curse and, given that the second hag the family annoyed cursed them with an inability to have twenty successive generations of males, this meant that the curse was pretty much eternal. It didn't really bother Charles as such, just as it hadn't bothered his son (until it killed him, of course: it was always kind of sad when a close relative passed away because interesting times became too interesting) or his fiery tempered wife with the hair to match.

In fact, as Charles snuck away in the early hours of morning (lest he be forced into pillow talk or, worse, cooking breakfast), he was reminded once more of the fact that despite their inability to settle down and build any kind of roots, life was good. There was the small issue that he had no legitimate progeny left, so far as he knew, which meant that there was no one to inherit the ruby encrusted silver sword that had been passed down for generations, but Charles figured that someone else would figure it out. Probably goblins, the slimy sods. They always seemed to have their fingers in pies, and depending on who was cooking occasionally their livers too.

It wasn't until nearly three years later, during a particularly embarrasing journey through the amazon rainforest with a tribe of _all-male_ Amazons (who also cut something off, much to Charles shock, horror and cross-legged-ness) after misunderstanding an advert, that Charles encountered any issues. In the middle of cursing his luck that the word for "female" looked surprisingly like the word for "male" it this particular set of hieroglyphics, he had decided to go on his own adventure, without the amazons, to get back _out_ of the ranforest. As with any cursed luck would have it, he had immediately stumbled across a village with a mild naga issue, and lacking any parseltongues in the area he had been hired to negotiate.

Negotiations had gone badly.

"Be gone, foul beast, lest I strike you down!" His pose was manly. One foot forwards, a wand dramatically flourished, his other hand holding a sword across his body, his person between the three nagas and the very attractive and hopefully legal village girl behind him.

An indecipherable chorus of hissing followed, so he had to follow up with something highly convinicing. He waved his sword in the air, flourishing it mightily. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

It looked rather like he was wiggling it around. The nagas blinked, another chorus of hissing seeping into the air, as if they were querying each other.

He lunged into the air with his sword taking two rapid steps towards them, and they slowly backed away, their heads wavering from side to side, his eyes keeping track of all three as they slowly moved.

Which is when it happened. Performance issues. He knew that it would eventually happen, as it did to everyone when they got old, but quite frankly now just wasn't the time. A bird of flame soared in, singing a song that really was quite annoying (who wanted to be uplifted when they were already on an adrenaline high?) and stole his sword, leaving him quite awkwardly facing three nagas with nothing but his wand and one hand flourishingly emptily in the air. This was going to be difficult. He swallowed.

It was at this point that the hopefully legal girl behind him split open, another naga bursting from her skin, diving towards his back, forcing him to dodge, tripping over, sending his wand flying. He knew it was too good to be true. Well fuck this for a game of silly buggers! With his last thought before he let the adrenaline take over completely, he cursed the person who had sent a bird to steal his sword whilst he was busy trying to be all heroic with it.

Deep in conflict with a basilisk, Harry Potter didn't realise quite what the shiver running down his spine meant. Surely it was just a drip running down his back? The feeling of irrational annoyance and anger aimed directly at his lower back was surely Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, not anyone else? In amidst the excitement of saving the damsel in distress, Harry completely forgot to note this as anything unusual and dismissed it from his mind.

It took Charles nearly two years to find out just where it might have gone. Two years of travelling the world, hunting down each and every last phoenix and bribing them with grapes and pieces of apple until they warbled at him and told him what he wanted to know. Two years of being forced to put up with go-happy cheer-up good-luck-charm songs non-stop. Charles was not a happy person as he approached Hogwarts, to the sound of resounding cheering.

Which wasn't unusual, he had to admit, despite his best intentions he had somehow picked up a following especially after that Luckheard person was proven to be a shameless fraud (he knew that storybook adventurers were bad news). If anything, the unusual thing was the fact that the cheering wasn't entirely aimed at him, but rather at a set of tents. Following the last red and gold bird the last few steps, he stumbled into a tent and found a rather nervous looking black haired wizard clutching a microcosmic dragon.

Narrowing his eyes, Charles uttered the words that would change everything:

"Well young man, I hope you're willing to explain yourself."

 **AN: I have no plans to take this further. Just a fun "badass adventurer gets sword stolen by Fawkes to let Harry use it in battle". Lets be honest, that sword had to come from** _ **somewhere**_ **.**


End file.
